Kentucky Vietnam Vet to be Buried at Arlington

A Kentucky airman who had been missing since his plane crashed during the Vietnam War will be buried tomorrow. Major John Lee McElroy’s three children will attend the service.

Russell McElroy of Bowling Green says for him and his two sisters, the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery is especially meaningful.

“At the time when my father was killed, kids being what they are, we thought maybe it was a mistake, maybe our father was actually alive, that by some miracle he’d survived and would be able to make it back,” says Russell McElroy.

He calls the closure on their experience ‘a blessing’.

Hi father, Major John Lee McElroy, was killed May 12th, 1968, after he volunteered to fly as a navigator on a C-130 evacuation mission in Vietnam. His remains were recently recovered and he’ll be interred next to his crewmates from that mission.